Chinchero

Chinchero is a city in the Southern Sierras of Peru.

Understand

Chinchero is one of the few towns in the region that is higher than Cusco (12,500 ft (3,800 m)) and so make sure you are acclimated before walking around.

You must have a boleto turistico to enter the Chinchero ruins and church. This ticket covers 14 sites in Cusco and the Sacred Valley, and costs S/70 for one day, or S/130 for ten days (Mar 2018).

Get in

Many buses pass through Chinchero on their way to either Urubamba or Cusco. The ride should cost about S/3 either way.

See

The ruins at Chinchero are a series of nested terraces rising up to a plateau upon which sits a church built in the early 1600s.

The elaborately frescoed 19th-century church is also worth a peek.

Do

There are several hikes that can be done from Chinchero. If you walk through the ruins, down into the valley, and follow the path along a riverbed, you will eventually emerge, after a few hours, at a small town where there are frequent combis to Urubamba. The path goes along the side of a verdant steep-sided valley offering beautiful views.

Buy

The market is only on Sundays, but there are usually women in the plaza arranging their crafts for the bus tourists who come through later, and the shops sell fine weaving at low prices.

Go next

• Maras, a few kilometres outside of Urubamba, to see the Incan salt fields (Salineras), and the concentric agricultural terraces at Moray.